IN THE matter of producing physical phenomena the Cooks are a most remarkable
family, all three daughters being powerful media, and that without any
solicitation on their part. The second one,
Katie [Cook], is by no means the least powerful of the three, although she
has sat more privately than her sister
Florence [Cook], and not had the same scientific tests (I believe) applied
to her. The first time I had an opportunity of testing Katie's mediumship was at
the private rooms of Signor Rondi, in a circle of nine or ten friends. The
apartment was small and sparsely furnished, being an artist's studio. The gas
was kept burning, and before the sitting commenced the door was locked and
strips of paper pasted over the opening inside. The cabinet was formed of a
window curtain nailed across one corner of the room, behind which a chair was
placed for the medium, who is a remarkably small and slight girl - much slighter
than her sister Florence - with a thin face and delicate features. She was
dressed, on, this occasion, in a tight-fitting black gown and Hessian boots that
buttoned half-way to her knee, and which, she informed me, she always wore when
sitting (just as
Miss Showers did), because they had each eighteen buttons, which took a long
time to fasten and unfasten. The party sat in a semicircle, close outside the
curtain, and the light was lowered, but not extinguished. There was no darkness,
and no holding of hands. I mention these facts to show how very simple the
preparations were. In a few minutes the curtain was lifted, and a form, clothed
in white, who called herself "Lily," was presented to our view. She answered
several questions relative to herself and the medium; and perceiving some doubt
on the part of some of the sitters, she seated herself on my knee, I being
nearest the curtain, and asked me to feel her body, and tell the others how
differently she was made from the medium. I had already realized that she was
much heavier than Katie Cook, as she felt like a heavy girl of nine or ten
stone. I then passed my hand up and down her figure. She had full breasts and
plump arms and legs, and could not have been mistaken by the most casual
observers for Miss Cook. Whilst she sat on my knee, however, she desired my
husband and Signor Rondi to go inside the curtain and feel that the medium was
seated in her chair. When they did so, they found Katie was only half entranced.
She thrust her feet out to view, and said, "I am not 'Lily'; feel my boots." My
husband had, at the same moment, one hand on Miss Cook's knee, and the other
stretched out to feel the figure seated on my lap. There remained no doubt in
his mind of there being two bodies there at the same time. Presently "Lily"
passed her hand over my dress, and remarked how nice and warm it was, and how
she wished she had one on too. I asked her, "Are you cold?" and she said,
"Wouldn't you be cold if you had nothing but this white thing on?"
Half-jestingly, I took my fur cloak, which was on a sofa close by, and put it
round her shoulders, and told her to wear it. "Lily" seemed delighted. She
exclaimed, "Oh, how warm it is! May I take it away with me?" I said, "Yes, if
you will bring it back before I go home. I have nothing else to wear, remember."
She promised she would, and left my side. In another moment she called out,
"Turn up the gas!" We did so. "Lily" was gone, and so was my large fur cloak! We
searched the little room round for it. It had entirely disappeared. There was a
locked cupboard in which Signor Rondi kept drawing materials. I insisted on its
being opened, although he declared it had not been unlocked for weeks, and we
found it full of dust and drawing blocks, but nothing else, so the light was
again lowered, and the séance resumed. In a short time the heavy cloak was
flung, apparently from the ceiling, evidently from somewhere higher than my
head, and fell right over it.
I laid it again on the sofa, and thought no more about it until I returned home.
I then found, to my astonishment, and considerably to my annoyance, that the fur
of my cloak (which was a new one) was all coming out. My dress was covered with
it, and from that day I was never able to wear the cloak again, "Lily" said she
had de-materialized it, to take it away. Of the truth of that assertion I had no
proof, but I am quite sure that she did not, put it together again when she
brought it back. An army of moths encamped in it could not have damaged it more,
and I can vouch that until that evening the fur had been as perfect as when I
purchased it.
I think my next sitting with Katie Cook was at a séance held in Museum Street,
and on the invitation of Mr. Charles Blackburn, who is one of the most earnest
friends of Spiritualism, and has expended a large amount of money in its
research. The only other guests were my husband, and General and Mrs. Maclean.
We sat round a small uncovered table with the gas burning and without a cabinet,
Miss Katie Cook had a seat between General Maclean and myself, and we made sure
of her proximity to us during the whole séance. In fact, I never let go of her
hand, and even when she wished to use her pocket-handkerchief, she had to do it
with my hand clinging to her own. Neither did she go into a trance. We spoke to
her occasionally during the sitting, and she answered us, though in a very
subdued voice, as she complained of being sick and faint. In about twenty
minutes, during which the usual manifestations occurred, the materialized form
of "Lily" appeared in the middle of the table, and spoke to us and kissed us all
in turn. Her face was very small, and she was only formed to the waist, but her
flesh was quite firm and warm. Whilst "Lily" occupied the table in the full
sight of all the sitters, and I had my hand upon Miss Cook's figure (for I kept
passing my hand up and down from her face to her knees, to make sure it was not
only a hand I held), some one grasped my chair from behind and shook it, and
when I turned my head and spoke, in a moment one arm was round my neck and one
round the neck of my husband, who sat next to me, whilst the voice of my
daughter "Florence" spoke to us both, and her long hair and her soft white dress
swept over our faces and hands. Her hair was so abundant and long, that she
shook it out over my lap, that I might feel its length and texture. I asked
"Florence" for a piece of her hair and dress, and scissors not being
forthcoming, "Lily" materialized more fully, and walked round from the other
side of the table and cut off a piece of "Florence's" dress herself with my
husband's penknife, but said they could not give me the hair that time. The two
spirits remained with us for, perhaps, half an hour or more, whilst General
Maclean and I continue to hold Miss Cook a prisoner. The power then failing,
they disappeared, but every one present was ready to take his oath that two
presences had been with us that never entered at the door. The room was small
and unfurnished, the gas was burning, the medium sat for the whole time in our
sight. Mrs. Maclean and I were the only other women present, yet two girls bent
over and kissed us, spoke to us, and placed their bare arms on our necks at one
and the same time. There was again also a marked difference between the medium
and the materializations. I have already described her appearance. Both of these
spirits had plump faces and figures, my daughter "Florence's" hands especially
being large and firm, and her loose hair nearly down to her knees.
I had the pleasure of holding another séance with Katie Cook in the same rooms,
when a new manifestation occurred. She is (as I have said) a very small woman,
with very short arms. I am, on the contrary, a very large woman, with very long
arms, yet the arm of the hand I held was elongated to such an extent that it
reached the sitters on the other side of the table, where it would have been
impossible for mine to follow it. I should think the limb must have been
stretched to thrice its natural length, and that in the sight of everybody. I
sat again with Katie Cook in her own house, where, if trickery is employed, she
had every opportunity of tricking us, but the manifestations were much the same,
and certainly not more marvellous than those she had exhibited in the houses of
strangers. "Lily" and "Florence" both appeared at the same time, under
circumstances that admitted of no possibility of fraud. My husband and I were
accompanied on that occasion by our friends, Captain and Mrs. Kendal, and the
order of sitting round the table was as follows: Myself, Katie, Captain K.,
Florence Cook, my husband, Mrs. Cook, Mrs. Kendal. Each member of the family, it
will be observed, was held between two detectives, and their hands were not once
set free. I must say also that the séance was a free one, courteously accorded
us on the invitation of Mrs. Cook; and, if deception had been, intended, we and
our friends might just as well have been left to sit with Katie alone, whilst
the other members of the family superintended the manifestation of the "ghosts"
outside. Miss Florence Cook, indeed (Mrs. Corner), objected at first to sitting
with us, on the score that her mediumship usually neutralized that of her
sister, but her mother insisted on her joining the circle, lest any suspicion
should be excited by her absence. The Cooks, indeed, are, all of them, rather
averse to sitting than not, and cordially agree in disliking the powers that
have been thrust upon them against their own will.
These influences take possession of them, unfitting them for more practical
work, and they must live. This is, I believe, the sole reason that they have
never tried to make money by the exercise of their mediumship. But I, for one,
fully believe them when they tell me that they consider the fact of their being
media as the greatest misfortune that has ever happened to them. On the occasion
of this last séance, cherries and rosebuds were showered in profusion on the
table during the evening. These may easily be believed to have been secreted in
the room before the commencement of the sitting, and produced at the proper
opportunity, although the hands of everybody interested in their production were
fast held by strangers. But it is less easy to believe that a lady of limited
income, like Mrs. Cook, should go to such an expense for an unpaid séance, for
the purpose of making converts of people who were strangers to her. Mediumship
pays very badly as it is. I am afraid it would pay still worse if the poor media
had to purchase the means for producing the phenomena, especially when, in a
town like London, they run (as in this instance) to hothouse fruit and flowers.
One more example of Katie Cook's powers and I have done. We were assembled one
evening by the invitation of Mr. Charles Blackburn at his house, Elgin Crescent.
We sat in a small breakfast room on the basement floor, so small, indeed, for
the size of the party, that as we encircled a large round table, the sitters'
backs touched the wall on either side, thus entirely preventing any one crossing
the room whilst we were established there. The only piece of furniture of any
consequence in the room, beside the chairs and table, was a trichord cabinet
piano, belonging to Mrs. Cook (who was keeping house at the time for Mr.
Blackburn), and which she much valued.
Katie Cook sat amongst us as usual. In the middle of the séance her control
"Lily," who was materialized, called out, "Keep hands fast. Don't let go,
whatever you do!" And at the same, time, without seeing anything (for we were
sitting in complete darkness), we became conscious that something large and
heavy was passing or being carried over our heads. One of the ladies of the
party became nervous, and dropped her neighbor's hand with a cry of alarm, and,
at the same moment, a weighty body fell with a fearful crash on the other side
of the room. "Lily" exclaimed, "Some one has let go hands," and Mrs. Cook called
out; "Oh! it's my piano." Lights were struck, when we found the cabinet piano
had actually been carried from its original position right over our heads to the
opposite side of the room, where it had fallen on the floor and been seriously
damaged. The two carved legs were broken off, and the sounding board smashed in.
Any one who had heard poor Mrs. Cook's lamentations over the ruin of her
favorite instrument, and the expense it would entail to get it restored, would
have felt little doubt as to whether she had been a willing victim to this
unwelcome proof of her daughter's physical mediumship.
Source:
"There is no Death" by Florence Marryat (London: William Rider & Son,
1917).
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